Upon a smooth lake…
Upon a smooth lake
I saw a seagull.
“I remember,” I said to it,
“a pleasant memory.”
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Upon a smooth lake
I saw a seagull.
“I remember,” I said to it,
“a pleasant memory.”
The poem featured here was written by an unknown Incan poet from the region of Jauja, which is in present-day Peru. It was originally collected by R. and M. d’Harcourt under the title “La musique des Incas et ses survivance” and published in Cantares Quechuas (1925).
Lina M. Ferreira C.-V. earned MFAs in creative nonfiction writing and literary translation from The University of Iowa. She is the author of Drown Sever Sing from Anomalous Press and Don’t Come Back from Mad River Books, as well as editor, with Sarah Viren, of the forthcoming anthology Essaying the Americas. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation work has been featured in journals including Bellingham Review, Chicago Review, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Poets & Writers, and The Sunday Rumpus, among others. She won Best of the Net and Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices Award, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and is a Rona Jaffe fellow. She moved from Colombia to China to Columbus, Ohio to Richmond, Virginia, where she works as an assistant professor for Virginia Commonwealth University. Visit www.linawritesessays.com.
English translation copyright (c) Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., 2018.